Fangraphs’ Joe Pawlikowski on Alex Rios’ struggles

… This year Rios has played like one of the worst players in baseball. We know he’s not one of the worst, at least in terms of talent. He’s put it on display before. But it’s not as though this is just a half-season slump that we can expect to correct itself. In the last calendar year Rios has hit .233/.282/.346, which amounts to a .277 wOBA. That ranks 137th out of the 140 qualified players. He has produced just 0.2 WAR in that time as well, which ranks 134th. Given this poor year-long performance, it’s tough to expect an improvement from Rios in the second half.

The problem extends even if we go back two calendar years. In that span Rios has hit .251/.299/.395, a .305 wOBA, and has been worth 2.6 WAR. That ranks 114th out of 133 qualified players. If we take that back even another year, which would include Rios’s worthwhile 2008 season — and give us the magical three-year sample for UZR — he has produced 6.5 WAR, which ranks 89th out of 124. His batting runs above average in the last three years is -10.3, which ranks 109th out of 124. Any way you look at it, his numbers are a far cry from the 8.6 WAR (29th out of 151) he produced from 2006 through 2007. …